


prophet to the nations

by dafirenze



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 22:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8640550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafirenze/pseuds/dafirenze
Summary: Fate made one thing clear - you are not allowed to love.





	

Fate made one thing clear -  _ you are not allowed to love. _

 

i.   
When Ezio meets Fate behind a haystack, he is ten years old and suspicious of his father. He is about to confront him, about to reveal himself and demand answers when Fate turns him around.

_ Not yet, my child. Not yet. _

 

ii.   
Ezio watches his father’s neck snap from the crowd and a part of his soul dies.

Everything feels hazy and unreal, but someone helps Ezio to his feet. He stands, and Fate cups his face gently.

_ I am helping you. This is me setting you on the right path. Never forget that I am helping you. _

 

iii.    
At seventeen, everything feels far more intense and bright than it really is. At seventeen, Ezio thinks that Cristina Vespucci is an angel and wants nothing more than to be near her.

_ This isn’t allowed _ , Fate reminds him, a sulking child hiding behind every happy and sun-soaked memory of Cristina’s warm eyes.  _ Don’t be greedy, _ Fate says when Ezio kisses Cristina goodbye, just outside her home, where her father’s eyes could reach them.  _ Careful, careful _ , Fate scolds as Ezio leaves her bedroom in the morning, shoulders hanging heavy with guilt.

Fate takes Federico and Giovanni and - oh God - Petruccio the next day as payment.

_ Be grateful _ , Fate says, anger tinging the words red.  _ You were warned, and still you took. _

Later, Fate wraps him in a warm embrace and wipes the tears away. Fate can be soft and gentle, and even hopeful when the mood strikes.  _ I do this because I know what you don’t _ . 

He wants to pull away but Fate holds him tight.  _ No. Listen. I know what you don’t. You are so much more. _

 

iv.   
Fate likes to tell stories.

_ A man goes to retrieve his dead wife from the Underworld _ , Fate tells Ezio as he sits silently on the roofs of Florence,  _ and he is told that he may have her back, but only if he does not turn around to look at her on the way out. _

Ezio kills his target, and it is bloody and violent. He isn’t focused, and he’s slipping up again. Fate tuts disapprovingly.

Later, Ezio asks if the man gets his wife back, and Fate laughs.

_ Of course not. _

 

v.   
When Ezio realises that he’s falling in love with Leonardo, he makes a deal with Fate.

“Not him, please not him. I’ll do anything, just please don’t hurt him. I can’t go on if you hurt him,” Ezio begs, and Fate considers it for a moment.

Weeks pass, and Ezio is aimless. Fate has left him and he doesn’t know where to turn. No father, no brothers, no home. Just all this anger and fear and nothing to put it into, nowhere to hold it but in his heart.

He flinches away from Leonardo’s touch. He has learnt to starve off love until it crawls away.

Leonardo keeps coming back.

 

vi.   
When Fate returns, Ezio hands over his pain and sobs with relief. 

_ We have work to do. _

 

vii.    
When he kisses Leonardo for the first time, the world does not fall down around them. There is no disaster, no carnage, nothing but their two souls, laid bare.

Ezio laughs with relief against Leonardo’s lips, and Leonardo pulls him close.

“You’re good, you’re real, I can have you,” Ezio mumbles against Leonardo’s neck, feeling safe and warm and untouchable.

 

viii.   
_ Do you want to know why the man looked back? _ Fate asks.

Ezio doesn’t answer; he has taken to ignoring Fate. These days, he much prefers the company of real flesh-and-blood people who give him purpose and direction. The grief is still there, a dull ache that will never fade, but he knows how to treat it now.

Fate grows restless.  _ Do you think you are safe now? _

He spends most nights with Leonardo. Venice is far less familiar than Florence, but there is nothing foreign about Leonardo’s arms and the way he holds Ezio tight. 

_ The man looked back because he was weak. Because love made him weak.  _

The day Ezio leaves for Rome, he kisses Leonardo like it’s a promise.

_ He could have had everything he wanted, but he loved her too much. He looked back, and he killed her a second time. Do you not see? _

When Ezio returns from Rome to Monteriggioni, Leonardo is gone.

 

ix.  
Claudia is an old woman when when of her grandchildren asks if she knew Leonardo da Vinci.

“Nonna, what was he like? Mama says your brother was his friend.”

Claudia doesn’t smile. There isn’t much she refuses to talk about; on her wedding night she had admitted all her sins to her husband, who had been thoroughly shocked, but loved her all the same (bless his heart). She has told her children of the cruelty that man can do unto man, and she made no effort to forget the last breaths of those who died by her hand.

But for as long as she lives, Claudia will never be able to speak of the grief her brother felt when he received the news of Leonardo’s death. They had attended the service together, in France, where Leonardo had spent his final days, cold and missing home. When they returned to Italy, Ezio never spoke Leonardo’s name again. Claudia visited a few times, to see her niece and nephew, to drink coffee with Sofia; but Ezio grief was so smothering, so overwhelming, she could only stay a few hours until it became difficult to breathe.

When Ezio died, Claudia found herself relieved that her brother had finally found peace. This is the one thing she will never admit to anyone.

Instead, she tells her grandchildren a story.

“There was once a man who went to retrieve his lover from the Underworld.”


End file.
